All News articles – Page 1600
-
News
Campbell privacy ruling exposes 'deeply flawed' CFA system
Bumper success fees for lawyers in libel cases will soon be a thing of the past following last week’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the Naomi Campbell case, solicitors predicted this week. Kevin Bays, partner at London firm Davenport Lyons, who ...
-
News
Damaging free speech
Steven Heffer’s article is off the mark in a number of ways. In light of the recent judgment by the ECHR in MGN v UK on excessive success fees, along with the damning report by the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee and the Jackson review, it ...
-
News
There should be no rigid threshold determining a prisoner’s right to vote
Spare a thought for Mark Harper, junior minister at the Cabinet Office who is responsible for political and constitutional reform. A chartered accountant by training, he finds himself responsible for reducing the number of his fellow MPs; for introducing fixed-term parliaments; and for answering the unanswerable West Lothian question. But ...
-
News
Legal executive numbers grow
The ranks of legal executives are set to swell, as the number of people sitting Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX) examinations climbed 40% in 2010 compared with the previous year. The examinations were taken for the Level 3 Professional Diploma in Law and Practice, which is ...
-
News
Financially unsound
I read December’s article by the Solicitors Regulation Authority chair Charles Plant . I would like to respond to him through the same channel.
-
News
UK rules leaves foreign spouse visa holders vulnerable
In R v Inhabitants of Eastbourne (1803) 4 East 103, Lord Ellenborough declared, absent of statutory support for poor foreigners, the ‘law of humanity, which is anterior to all positive laws, obliges us to afford them relief, to save them from starving’. For one group, however, the law falls short ...
-
News
Solicitor wants forum for ‘isolated’ NHS lawyers
A solicitor working in the National Health Service wants to create a forum for NHS lawyers, to reduce the sense of ‘isolation’ they may feel. Justin Day, commercial legal adviser at Royal Bournemouth & Christchurch Hospitals Foundation Trust, wants the group to provide a setting ...
-
News
Freedom of information: who 'holds' project licences?
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoI) applies to information which is held by a public authority at the time it receives an access request. The First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) recently examined the sometimes difficult question of when information is ‘held’ in ...
-
News
Rough guide
Obiter knows times are tough out there for property lawyers, but did not realise just how bad things have got until this harrowing picture of Robert Camp, commercial property solicitor and joint managing partner at Exeter firm Stephens Scown, arrived at Obiter Towers ...
-
News
Immigration
Compassionate grounds – HIV – Leave to remain – Medical treatment SG (Zimbabwe) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: CA (Civ Div) (Lords Justices Sedley, Rimer, Sullivan): 12 January 2011 ...
-
News
Immigration
Human rights – Asylum – Children’s welfare – Failed asylum seekers R (on the application of (1) Reetha Suppiah (2) Danahar Govindasamy (a child by his litigation friend Reetha Suppiah) (3) Emmanuel Govindasamy (a child by his litigation friend ...
-
News
VAT victory on personal injury medical reports
Personal injury clients will not have to pay VAT on the cost of medical reports following a successful appeal by a Nottingham law firm, supported by the Law Society, in a tax tribunal last week. Nottingham personal injury and clinical negligence firm Barratt Goff & Tomlinson ...
-
News
Je ne regrette rien
Any lawyers who consider themselves to be hardworking, dedicated types may be concerned to learn that they are in the minority within the profession. That is, if you believe the results of a survey of 500 legal professionals conducted by online jobs board twosteps.com. According to the survey, a quarter ...
-
News
Memory lane
Law Society’s Gazette, January 1971 Letter to the editor: At least legal jargon is clearer than computer language ...
-
News
Marching together
Why does Roger Smith assume that ‘most readers will never have been on a demonstration’. I, and most of my colleagues who work in publicly funded legal work, have been on countless demonstrations, relating to many different civil liberties issues over the years, and many ...
-
News
Does the profession have strength in numbers?
The UK’s laughable inability to cope with more than a light dusting of frozen water is a national embarrassment. But snow has its uses. The week’s shock 0.5% GDP fall is all down to the weather, we are told, and the same applies to gruesome retail sales figures.
-
News
The trials of youth
Obiter was heartened to see the talent on display at a south-east regional heat of the Bar National Mock Trial Competition last week. The trials were conducted in a competitive but civilised fashion by teams of 17-year-olds from local schools.
-
News
STEP members optimistic about 2011
More than half of the respondents to a survey of trust and estates practitioners expect that business across all areas of the practice they work in will ‘improve’ or ‘improve significantly’ over the coming year, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) has reported.
-
News
Chancery Lane hails landmark ruling on access to justice
Solicitors must be allowed to shoulder the risk of adverse costs orders on behalf of their clients to ensure proper access to justice, the Court of Appeal ruled today. Giving judgment in Sibthorpe and Morris v London Borough of Southwark, the court said that a conditional ...
-
News
Conveyancing Quality Scheme advertising campaign to launch
The Law Society is to launch a consumer-facing advertising campaign to promote its Conveyancing Quality Scheme this spring, it said last week. The campaign will feature online ‘pay per click’ banner advertising, as well as promotional material including posters and stickers which will be made available ...